The first successfully funded project was The Chime Pavilion, a student effort from The Manchester School of Architecture that has raised five times its funding goal of $483. The first project launched called Picade, a video game arcade cabinet for the Rasberry Pi and other devices raised $119,392, double its original target.

So far, 45,799 people have participated in backing a project. The largest share of backers came from the U.K. (39 percent) while EU and U.S. backers made up 23 percent each. By comparison, 78 percent of U.S.-based projects are funded by Americans with the rest coming from abroad.